Amnesia: Rebirth

Much of this game is not very good sadly. I'm not sure what happened here. Given how well the first Amnesia told it's story you really inhabited Daniel and felt like you were learning what happened without constantly interupting your ability to explore and solve puzzles. Every bit of dialogue in the first felt it had purpose, every paper contained something relevant. The levels started off semi believable the castle seeming morphed into this wild never ending spiral of madness that was otherworldly. Here though, not only is the story hamfisted, it stops you from playing the game. It doesn't want you uncover clues or figure out who you are or what happened. It wants to talk at you about about genuinely boring and unintriguing characters. With plot that never has any revelations that you didn't already expect. There is moment early on where there is this music sting and the character says out loud something like "omg I just remembered this!" and I was like, well yeah. That is the motif you have been hitting me over the head with since I read the title of the game Frictional. I will say that there is some genuine creepiness and anxiety inducing sections with classic Amnesia puzzles that come about 2-3 hours in, but by then you have been doing nothing but walking in the dark, looking at drawings and hearing so much meaningless filler dialogue, you will probably struggle to care.

I've loved all their games but absolutely detest this one. Annoying protagonist, too dark, too many chase scenes, too many monsters. I chose the bad ending just to finish the game quicker.

Very strong presentation, scared me really effectively. But due to the small amount and the simplicity of the puzzles you can get trough it rather swiftly, this doesn't have to be a bad thing depending on what you are looking for. Can easily recommend this game to everyone that is looking for immersion and an intriguing story above all else, just don't go in expecting mind bending puzzles or survival horror.

Fabulously frightening. Beautifully atmospheric. The subject matter hits home hard for me too, on a personal level. It's another amazing horror experience from the studio that's perhaps best at it.

Without going into spoilers, what this game was going for is less about immersion and far more about building empathy with a woman protagonist in an impossibly dire situation, and I was totally here for it. The Amnesia games, and Frictional games in general, have always been linear to some degree, so I didn't see the focus on narrative elements as a problem, especially as they flesh out Tasi's character, her relationships and especially her history prior to the game, which is crucial to setting up the main conflict. Meanwhile the mechanical flow of finding scarce light sources kept the exploration sections tense (although they admittedly made them a little too scarce), while the mechanic of death propelling you past trial and error sequences in favor of narrative consequences (but not so dire that they disincentivize playing through your mistakes) kept the momentum going. There were also more than a few chase sections that were some of the most terrifying in the series. The alternate world sections were exactly what I was looking for in a horror game at the time I played, and were a surprise that I was not expecting based on early trailers and reviews. The locations and transitions between them never felt repetitive, and while they tied into the established lore, they were distinct from prior games, and in many places terrifyingly alien. If you buy into the empathy the game builds with Tasi's character, the final act and the ending choices hit incredibly hard. The game is more than competent with traditional game-y horror elements, but it excels at personal horror and how your choices and understanding of the world feed into it. This is a game that wants you to pay attention to what's going on even more than it wants you to run from it.